I can't recommend Printful enough!
About a month ago I put together an article where I compared the various print on demand services & assigned each a score on a 10 point scale. To sum up the major positives:
- Very intuitive, easy to use UI
- It's FREE to use (some competitors like Gearbubble charge monthly fees)
- Email support is responsive, but not the fastest I've seen
- Quality products (low return rates, plus you can place sample orders at a discount with free shipping to see for yourself)
- Self-sufficient UI controls that allow you to easily change order details, without having to work with a support team
- Shipping live rates (Pay costs based on customer location & item weight+size, instead of flat rate)
We're meant to be building a passive income model, so strong consideration needs to be given to ease of use, which is the main reason I recommend Printful so highly.
Printful Custom Embroidered Hats
Printful has a wide selection of hats available for custom embroidery.
While most marketplaces are flooded with t-shirts and coffee mugs, selling hats is a great way to pivot from what the majority of sellers are competing on, to get less competitive sales.
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Source: Printful Example Gallery
You can embroider up to 4 different thread colors per design. & each different color needs to be it's on layer when creating the mockup in Printful's editor.
With some practice, it's quite easy to do.
Pricing Your Hats
You can view the full list with pricing (+ a profit calculator) on their website.
I typically aim to make no less than a $9.99 profit. This may seem like a lot, but don't forget to account for the cut that all eCommerce platforms take a cut from both your sale + shipping costs.
Amazon typically takes a 17% cut:
As you can see, the hat was sold for $24.99 & $4.60 was collected for shipping, amounting to $29.59.
Amazon took a $5.03 fee, amounting to 17% (more than 3x what Etsy takes). They are ruthless, and their fees continue to increase.
You can find Amazon's referral fees here.
Etsy typically takes a 5% cut:
Etsy takes a 5% cut from each transaction, and the fee is not displayed on transaction notifications. You can find a fees breakdown on the Finances > Payment Account tab.
Click here to view the Etsy fees page.
eBay typically takes a 10% cut:
If you ask me, 10% is pretty reasonable if eBay didn't charge us a higher insertion fee than any other website. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but the high cost monthly insertion fees typically keep me from selling on eBay, outside of bestsellers.
You porbably noticed that similar to Etsy, eBay doesn't display the final value fee on the transaction notification.
Use this link to find your eBay transaction fees on your monthly invoices.
You can find a detailed breakdown of the eBay fees here.
The Printful Integration Workflow
Ready to get started selling custom embroidered hats online? Great! Here's the high-level workflow:
- Create your Printful seller account
- Connect your Printful account with your Amazon, eBay, or Etsy account by clicking "Stores" in the nagivation, & then click "Choose a platform"
- After your Printful account syncs up with your marketplace account, from the "Stores" screen, click "Add" underneath "Product Sync"
- Create your product using the Printful UI and allow the listing to be created via API after providing the product design, title, & price
note: If you are pushing a product to Etsy, you will need to edit the listing and "Publish" it before it will be available - Optional: After the listing is created, you can send paid traffic to the listing by advertising it
- Following a sale, you will receive notification via Email (see the examples above)
- Printful will take typically anywhere from 1 minute to 1 hour to "download" the sale. Upon receiving it, you will be notified via email, & the funds will be debited from your Printful wallet
- If anything is wrong with the order you'll be notified via email.
Typical reasons include: bad design file (sometimes the embroidery lines are too thin), copyright infringement detection, or you are simply out of funds
Otherwise, there is no manual action required from you, and you will be notified when the order is fulfilled - In my experience, the order can take anywhere from 2-7 business days to be fulfilled & shipped out
- The order is automatically updated as "Shipped", & the tracking number is updated for you. You don't need to take any manual action!
- Depending on the marketplace, your funds will be deposited into your bank account within a few days. Your profit = (sale price) - (cost of goods) - (cost of shipping) - (advertising fees) - (marketplace fees) - (taxes on profit)
Seems easy, right? That's because it is!
The best part is that after creating the product listings, it becomes a completely passive workflow outside of customer service.
I sold over 1,000 hats in my first 2 months using the Printful+Amazon & Printful+Esty integration.
Amazon:
Etsy:
Up for a challenge? Try and beat my numbers =)
